The court battles swirling around the owner of the Baltimore Orioles intensified late yesterday when seven banks filed in New York to place Eli S. Jacobs into involuntary bankruptcy.The action is not expected to derail negotiations surrounding the sale of the team.Mr. Jacobs has 20 days to respond to the filing, at which time he could contest the action by demonstrating he is paying his debts. But that is regarded as unlikely because creditors have filed numerous lawsuits seeking repayment of overdue loans and personal guarantees.

The company affiliated with developer Patrick Turner that was planning to redevelop the waterfront of the Westport neighborhood in southwest Baltimore has filed for bankruptcy. Inner Harbor West LLC, the subject of a Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy petition filed by two creditors earlier this month, has asked a federal judge to convert the case to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to documents filed Tuesday in Maryland's bankruptcy court. If the change is allowed, Inner Harbor West LLC could reorganize with trustee oversight and develop a plan to repay creditors.

The owner of a downtown office building has gone to court to force a now-closed Baltimore advertising agency into involuntary bankruptcy, saying the agency owes $53,000 in lease fees.Fayette Realty Holding Co. Inc. of New York filed its petition in U.S. District Court Wednesday against the Barton-Gillet Co.The small, 75-year-old ad agency closed in April. It had moved from Gay Street offices to One Center Plaza at 120 W. Fayette St. in October 1994.Fayette Realty, an affiliate of J. P. Morgan Investment Management Co. in New York, took control of the 152,000-square-foot One Center Plaza in January 1994 after its developer, the Manekin Corp.

The foreclosure auction of a 43-acre plot of waterfront land in Westport that was scheduled for Thursday has been canceled because an involuntary bankruptcy petition has been filed against the land's corporate owner, according to the auctioneer. Inner Harbor West LLC, a company affiliated with developer Patrick Turner, owes a construction firm and a land consulting company more than $200,000, according to the petition, filed last week by the consultant and builder. The auction had to be canceled because of the petition, said Andrew L. Billig, a member of the auction house A.J. Billig and Co. The land's trustees will have to convince the bankruptcy judge that the sale should proceed, he said.

Two postal employees appeared in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt in separate cases yesterday, with one pleading guilty to filing a false bankruptcy claim against his boss and another accused of stealing checks from the mail. A grand jury indicted George E. Mozee, 46, of Bowie on charges of bank fraud in the theft of personal checks from the mail. Prosecutors accused Mozee, a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service, of stealing boxes of personal checks from the mail in the Lamond Riggs Station post office in Washington from July 2004 until August 2005.

Big Lots Stores Inc. has agreed to purchase inventory from the financially ailing Commerce Corp. for an amount expected to top $6 million, according to recent bankruptcy court documents. The entire proceeds are slated to go to M&T Bank, which was owed $17.9 million by Commerce in principal alone as of late February, court documents said. Creditors of Commerce filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition last month against the Curtis Bay-based distributor of lawn and garden supplies.

Unsecured creditors of the failing Leedmark store in Glen Burnie, afraid of being ignored as the store heads toward a January closing, filed suit in federal court to force the company into involuntary bankruptcy.Two Baltimore companies and one in Louisiana, claiming they are owed a total of $268,000, filed the petition Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore in an effort to force G. B. Glenmark Ltd. Co. into a liquidation under Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code.If the court grants the creditors' petition, it will appoint a trustee to oversee the Leedmark store's liquidation and the orderly payment of the proceeds to creditors.

An Elkridge-based clothing manufacturer has been forced into involuntary bankruptcy proceedings by creditors who say Wang Zi Cashmere Products Inc. owes them more than $150,000 from its expansion into the factory outlet store business.The creditors' filing, made last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore, said the cashmere company did not pay a contractor, a display shelf fabricator and architects who worked on some or all of the company's eight factory outlets, scattered from Massachusetts to California.

Damian Bohager of Bohager's Bar & Grill Inc. is being threatened with involuntary bankruptcy by two of his brothers.The dispute dates to the 1992 death of Bernard C. Bohager Sr., who owned the Fells Point property at 515 S. Eden St. The building was put into a trust with equal ownership among his six children. Two of the children, Robert and Bernard Bohager Jr., were named trustees and now control the property. That same year, their younger brother, Damian Bohager, and several partners opened the bar and grill, paying rent to the trust.